Oh, what a time to be alive and on social media.
While First Amendment attorneys are legitimately arguing whether the president can block people on Twitter, someone gave California’s possible state dinosaur its own Twitter account – and it’s pretty entertaining.
The account for the plant-eating, duck-billed Augustynolophus (@augustynolophus) is a publicity tool, no doubt, created to lobby the legislature and rally the public behind the idea of having a state dinosaur. Most of its 78 tweets are links, retweets and replies to news stories about the dino discovery and the legislative process around #AB1540. That’s the assembly bill authored by Santa Monica democrat Richard Bloom.
Several of the Tweets involve proper name pronunciation (it’s august-steen-ah-lo-fuss Morissi, FYI.). The Orange County band Echo Sparks asked for song-writing purposes. Jeremy D. Thomson (@Reelpolitik) used the name to make a Smiths joke.
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Actually, the full name is @augustynolophus morrisi. I preferred it's earlier work in The Smiths to its later solo efforts.
— Jeremy D. Thompson (@Reelpolitik) April 6, 2017
Augustynolophus has his own jokes, too. What do you call a paleontologist who sleeps all the time?
And the account bio makes it clear the dinosaur isn’t taking itself too terribly seriously. “Native Californian, Los Angeles resident, older than Jerry Brown (barely), vegetarian, and firm believer in science.”
Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper Twitter account without some trolling:
but the earth is only 6200 years old, and dinosaurs are a media-implemented lie to test faith.
— josh .. (@jahwix) April 7, 2017
Or the sharing a good meme:
So glad my friends at the @NHMLA keep me company. #StateDinosaur pic.twitter.com/guobfVOluI
— Augustynolophus (@augustynolophus) May 11, 2017
If nothing else, now you know #fossilfriday is a hashtag people use.
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